COAL 11: TC, or Not TC? That Is the Question!

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– Posted on December 15, 2023

Upon returning home from Indianapolis in 1995, I began looking for a manual 5-speed transaxle for the TC, because I was not happy with the performance of the car with its 3-speed automatic. It took some time to find the correct donor vehicle, which turned out to be an ’87-’89 Dodge Daytona’s A-555 manual 5-speed transaxle, with Getrag gears and a strengthened differential housing. This was one of the first transaxles designed for the Mopar intercooled-turbocharged cars, which at that time were growing markedly stronger and stronger.

I had the yard remove the entire drivetrain, from the flywheel to the manual shifter inside the car, retaining every clip, bolt, and nut and cutting nothing with the torch. Unfortunately, they found the transaxle case was broken in the accident which had sent this Daytona to the junkyard, but fortunately the yard provided me with a bright and shiny reconditioned A-555 at no additional cost.

The swap was simple and easy to accomplish. It transformed the car for the better, and the transaxle has performed without a single problem ever since.

On 25 October 2011, I made the second major conversion on my TC: from a Teves ABS brake system to a conventional master cylinder and vacuum booster. This was made more or less necessary by the difficulty of finding new or dependable used or rebuilt parts for the ABS, and the discontinuation of the OE Delco accumulators. This conversion has also proven reliable and dependable, and brake pedal feel and operation even on hard braking has been as good as before.

Now, in 1985 when these Q-body TCs were being engineered, there was not yet a K-car with rear disc brakes. But the high-performance versions of the Daytona was scheduled to get them for 1987, so the same calipers and accompanying parts were scheduled for the TC when it went into production. That was 35 (model-) years ago, though, and the combined volume of Daytonas and TCs with these rear brakes was small to begin with. There were greater volumes of later K-derivative cars with rear discs, and on 1 June 2023, I finished putting newer-type rear discs on my TC as its latest update/conversion. It’s a simple workaround for obsolete and unavailable original-type rear disc brake calipers for the 89-91 TC. So from these:

…to these:

The trip to this year’s TC meet went very well. We had three days of classroom instruction and demonstrations as well as times for actual work on some of the members’ cars. The big downer came when the president of the club announced that he had Covid. And me, I had been sitting next to him at the opening of the meeting and all that day…!

We went on without him the next couple of days. In Joplin, Missouri, we saw a familiar face:

And along the way I ended up underneath the meet organizer’s personal TC to repair the 5-speed transaxle shift cable (oh, now I know why he was so anxious for me to attend!). Saturday evening was our farewell dinner at a fancy restaurant and I still felt OK.

As we were leaving Chesterfield, Missouri on 26 September, I got a call from Al, a TC club member from Switzerland. He’d been at the meet, in the TC he bought a few years ago as a near-exact match for the one he has in Switzerland—he says it’s his lady’s—so they can attend TC meets and drive around while they’re orbiting their other home in California as their primary main TC stays in Switzerland with its garagemates:

His TC’s transaxle—an A604 UltraDrive 4-speed automatic behind the car’s Mitsubishi 3.0 V6—had failed as he was leaving St. Louis. What should he do? Bill and I were already in Kansas City, so there was nothing I could do but tell him to find a repair shop.

Since Al and his lady Erika were touring the USA, they had to continue while his TC was left at the shop; the owner told him he was working on the car in the photo here (look closely and you will find a car somewhere in there), and it would be awhile before he could start on the A604.

So The TC stood outside the shop for over a month and a half before it was brought inside, during which time the catalytic converter got stolen. That was not mentioned until we got pictures of the underneath of the car taken by Richard, the guy who had the meet at his facility.

It took some weeks before the transmission was finally finished and installed (along with a new catalytic converter, at the transmission shop’s expense). In the meantime, I had snapped one up from a local-to-me wrecking yard, in case the one in St. Louis wound up never getting rebuilt. These are not common in yards any more, and the one I found bore an official Chrysler reman plate:

The car’s own transaxle did get rebuilt, and the car got scheduled for shipment on 15 December to me here in Arizona; I will store it for Al until he returns next year.

Back to the events just after the TC meet: Sunday morning, a member friend from the Denver, Colorado area and I headed toward his home, which we had previously arranged, but now I was beginning to feel the effects of the Covid. I let him drive the whole way, as he knew the route well.

Arriving on Monday afternoon, we both took the Covid test; I had it but he did not (yet). Tuesday, I drove to the VA Hospital in Denver; went to the emergency walk-in and was seen, got a bag full of meds, and went back to my friend’s house to spend the week recovering.

Of course, during that week there came an ad in the newspaper: a person wanted to find a home for her 1989 TC with only 22,000 miles on it. My friend was interested; he had a couple of high-mileage TCs, and the car in the ad had the 16-valve Maserati-headed 2.2 engine and 5-speed manual transaxle. Bill, my friend, called the lady and she was amenable, so I told Bill I’d go take a look at the car on Friday—I was planning to be well by then.

When Friday came, I headed for her address. I hadn’t realized it was quite so far from where I was staying, and traffic was awful. When I finally arrived, there was a tree-maintenance crew taking up the driveway, so it was difficult to get my car up near the garage door.

After meeting her and her ex-husband, we went to the garage to see the car. It was tucked in a corner and had been covered for, I guess, 28 years except for times when she or someone else looked at it. The original tires had been kept inflated and the car looked stunning—like a preserved mummy after thousands of years.

The keys were there, but the battery was dead (duh). I tried intravenous 12V from my TC, and everything came to life…

Transfusion! From Hemi’s live red TC…

…to the long-dormant one in the garage.

…except the starter motor. This car was equipped with a theft deterrent system, and the batteries in the key fob were dead, something we could not overcome at the moment. The car looked as though transported directly from a new-vehicle showroom, its red paint glowing in front of us and its ginger interior also looking fresh and new.

I did not discuss price with her at all, as that was up to Bill, if he wanted to pursue buying the car. On 17 October, Bill contacted me to let me know he had bought the car—price still was not discussed, but he did say when he finally takes possession and makes plans to remove the car from the lady’s garage, he might ship it to me, to revive.

But in the end, he found a shop in his area where the car will br delivered and he and the shop owner will get the car going. That’s the theory, anyway; it is not inconceivable he might still wind up making an appointment with Doctor TC (that’s me!).

Previous chapters:

  1. First Transport – Coming to ‘Amerika’
  2. Being American and Picking a Car Company
  3. Motoring Into the Working World
  4. The 1960s – Serving, Saluting, and Swapping
  5. The 1970s, Part I – Backing and Forthing
  6. The 1970s, Part II – Barking and Forthing
  7. The 1980s, Part I – The Barracuda Goes Into Dry Dock and the Wagon’s a Tractor
  8. The 1980s, Part II – Much Too Many Cars and One Dealership Too Much
  9. Out of One Box and Into Another (Also: Friends in High Places)
  10. Hitting the Bricks and Swap-a-Dee-Doo-Dah